Cloning, Jesus, Caesar & the Blesséd Mammy's ovaries

international | sci-tech | other press Wednesday May 25, 2005 12:01 by .:.

rabbi, abba, is it ok to ignore your miraculous thaumaturgic powers and do it ourselves?

"If Jesus Christ was alive today he would defend investigation with maternal [stem] cells"
:- James Watson one of the discoverers of the double helix DNA molecule in a print interview published by the La Vanguardia in Spain yesterday.

Makes me laugh. When exactly did Jesus die?
Or rather didn't he die and go through the Resurrection? Isn't that why he's famous?
Isn't he alive, still? out there somewhere, waiting to return and tell us all about stem cells, life support machines, exactly what sexual acts between consenting adults are ok? at what price a house may be sold? whether it was the right thing to invade iraq?

& Today it is reported that the US congress have been debating changes to US law to allow stem cell research. Mr Bush believes Jesus lives, and he's not a scientist, he's a pharisee or saducee.

& he's just lost his vote.

"The US House of Representatives has voted in favour of federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research despite President George W Bush's threatening to use his presidential veto to stop it from becoming a law. The House approved it by a 238-194 vote on Tuesday, far short of the two-thirds majority that would be needed to override a veto. Supporters of the bill claimed it would accelerate cures for diseases but opponents viewed as akin to abortion. Opposing embryonic stem cell research Bush in a speech at White House said, "We should not use public money to support the further destruction of human life,"
"In the complex debate over embryonic stem-cell research, we must remember that real human lives are involved, both the lives of those with diseases that might find cures from this research and the lives of the embryos that will be destroyed in the process," he said.
"This bill would take us across a critical ethical line by creating new incentives for the ongoing destruction of emerging human life," the President said.

"Crossing this line would be a great mistake."

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the Republican congressman for Missouri has used a parliamentary tactic developed by the Irish Party at Westminster in the XIX century, reading a lengthy essay by his daughter into the official record on the dangers of cloning.
"From where they sit, cells are about life":-
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_2756046

This contrasts with the attitude in assembly line Detriot, where the stem cell debate promts worries-
"Brain drain feared without new stem-cell laws"
http://www.freep.com/news/health/stemcells25e_20050525.htm


"George Bush vows to block funding for stem cell research":-
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2005/s1376788.htm

Seattle reports that 50 Republicans have joined with the Democrats to defy Bush-
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002287876_stemcell25.html

As have Turkish media :-
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=hotnews&alt=&trh=20050525&hn=19939

and Boston (closer to Dublin than Berlin) :-
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/05/25/house_votes_to_lift_limits_on_stem_cells/
(stem cell research is banned in Berlin, but ok in Boston, approved in Engurland and approved in Spain)
And of course the Koreans have reported the news, coz as we all know they've gone the furthest in open research in all this, cloning full embryos:-
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200505/200505250006.html


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the interview with Watson, which prompted my thoughts on all this, coming so soon after Trinity Sunday, that yearly reflection on the occidental philosophical and ethical tradition, when people go hew a slogan or equation in the stonework and leave some clues for posterity on the really valuable things. It has almost prompted long letters from me to the Nobel Prize winner, because it defies accepted wisdom. Normally Politicians such as Bush invoke Jesus to stop scientists, not the other way round. I remember last year it was the date we okupied the Cathedral with the 1500 muslim "sin papales". Maybe when Jesus gets back we'll ask him, (if its not too cheeky) "Rabbi, Abba, when ought residence and integration be deemed practical for migrant workforces?" (Like work up slowly to the stem cell stuff) :-
http://www.lavanguardia.es/web/20050524/51185491006.html